


unfinished business

by simplyclockwork



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: (In his 20s), Also someone is a ghost and it's not Sherlock, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case Fic, Ghosts, Ghosts are jerks, Haunting, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of past substance use and addiction, Montague Street, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Rehab Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock ain't afraid of no ghosts, So do with that what you may, Spooky, Spooky things going on, Tags Are Hard, Tags May Change, Younger Sherlock, ghost sex?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:49:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27154756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyclockwork/pseuds/simplyclockwork
Summary: “Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that's what.”-Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses----Updates sporadic.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 158
Kudos: 94
Collections: Spooky Johnlock Collection





	1. Montague Street

**Author's Note:**

> I'm hoping to have this completed by Halloween, but we'll see how that goes. I have a feeling it'll end up being longer than I think... 👻

The block of flats was rundown and faded, the brick facade in dire need of repair. The entire street looked the same, a stretch of old, aged buildings left to fall into something resembling ruin. Sherlock stared at the peeling paint on the front door and pursed his lips.

Montague Street might not be the most glamorous of locations, but the lease was the first decision he’d been allowed to make since getting out of rehab and that almost cast a positive light on the dingey rental property.

“You know the flat’s history, then?” His landlord-to-be watched him with apparent anxiety in his wrinkled face, handing over a clipboard with an unsteady hand. Sherlock read him as an alcoholic attempting recovery. Admirable, but often easier said than done. Sherlock wondered if he should recommend the facility he’d just left and thought better of broaching the topic.

Instead, he grabbed the board with a curt nod and scrawled his signature on the rental forms before handing it back.

Sherlock turned to look at the building, his lips pressing into a thin line again. “If you mean the man who died here five years ago, then yes. I do.” He kept his reply short and to the point; the man’s nervous hand wringing was beginning to wear on his nerves.

“I’m afraid the last few tenants didn’t seem to share your view.”

Scoffing, Sherlock frowned at the man. “Death happens. In fact, my livelihood _depends_ on it continuing to happen.” He shrugged and narrowed his eyes with a humourless twist tugging down the corners of his lips. “I’m not afraid of death.”

The man sighed, his throat bobbing in an audible swallow. “People said strange things happened in the flat. Weird noises at night and the like.” He watched Sherlock’s face closely, and Sherlock stared back, wondering why the man sounded like he was trying to talk himself out of a potential renter. But his name was already on the papers, and Sherlock needed the flat far more than he needed peace and quiet if what his landlord said was true.

“Are you suggesting the place is haunted?” A sharp snort followed the question and made the man wince.

“Well, not everything can be explained.”

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,” Sherlock mused, still looking at the flat with a furrowed brow. “And I’m not afraid of ghosts. Nor do I believe in them.”

“Brave man you are, Mister Holmes.”

Another snort as Sherlock dismissed the statement. “Bravery doesn’t even begin to come into it.”

* * *

The flat’s interior was a far cry from homey and lacking in even basic comforts. Much like the outside, the inside had seen far better days. In addition to the peeling wallpaper, the incessant dripping from the tap in the bathroom, and the loud, rattly pipes, there was a suspicious stain halfway up one of the bedroom walls.

Standing on his bed with the thin mattress creaking under his feet, Sherlock stared at the stain with narrowed eyes. After studying it for half an hour, he still wasn’t sure if it was old blood, damp, or something else entirely.

He lifted his hands, pressed them together, and placed the tips of his fingers to his bottom lip. “Is this where it happened?” he asked aloud, speaking to no one but himself and maybe the skull sitting on top of his wardrobe. “Is this where the tenant died five years ago?” If the skull was listening, it offered nothing in the way of a response, and Sherlock squinted one eye closed as he tilted his head. The bed creaked again, and he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “Unless they died in their sleep, a mess of some kind seems inevitable. Could have been a suicide, but if this is the blood spatter, it seems far too high for someone who shot or cut themselves.” His hand lifted, fingers trailing through the air in the same path as the stain.

Brow furrowed, Sherlock stepped off the bed, paced the room and came back, mounting the mattress again until he was standing directly beneath the stain.

“Maybe it was murder?” he suggested at large to the empty room. Before he could muse further, a strange sensation came over him. It was similar to the feeling of knowing someone was watching you, and Sherlock turned to frown at the window, expecting to see someone outside, nevermind that he was on the third floor. It was an irrational reaction, but it was a small comfort, nonetheless, when he saw that not only was there no one outside, but the window was closed.

Which meant the sudden blast of cold that engulfed him wasn’t an errant breeze.

Shivering, Sherlock rubbed his arms and stomped his feet twice to bring feeling into his quickly numbing legs. “Must be poorly insulated,” he muttered, shooting a hard look at the window frame. He squinted at the single pane and considered tacking up a blanket instead of curtains when an unexpected sound behind him made him jolt.

He looked over his shoulder and saw the skull on the ground, having tipped off the top of his wardrobe as if pushed by an invisible hand. Blinking, Sherlock jumped off the bed and crossed the room, bending to pick it up. He turned the skull over in his hands, relieved to see it was undamaged, before carrying it over to the bed and set it on a rickety end table.

His tongue caught between his teeth, Sherlock studied the skull with narrowed eyes. It stayed where it was, goggling up at him with dark, empty eye sockets. He noted that the chill, wherever it had come from, was gone. Perturbed, Sherlock dropped onto the bed. Sprawled across the mattress on his back, he stared up at the stain, noting that another mark of the same faded shade darkened the ceiling directly overhead.

“It’s probably damp,” he said to the cold room and the silent skull, even as something whispered deep in his mind that it _couldn’t_ possibly be damp because someone died here, and damp was _boring._

After staring at the stain for another minute, Sherlock dug two fingers into his pocket and wriggled his phone out from his tight jeans. Holding the device over his head, he typed out a text to Lestrade.

_Need case file. 521 Montague Street, five years ago. SH_

Dropping the phone onto the mattress, Sherlock ran his thumb over his bottom lip and studied the stain with narrowed eyes.

* * *

Sherlock slept poorly that night, shivering under his thin comforter hard enough to make his teeth chatter. When he struggled out into the frigid kitchen to turn on the heat, the radiator wailed out a plaintive death rattle, shook loud enough to make him think it might break apart, and died with a wheeze.

Standing over the corpse, Sherlock dug his hands into his armpits with his arms tight across his chest and scowled. Of course. Figured.

He returned to the bed and tugged on a pair of socks, a jumper, and a pair of sweatpants before cocooning himself in the thin blanket. Somehow, the cold only seemed to increase. With morning came the feeling that his very bones had frozen in the night.

Fresh out of bed, Sherlock’s first instinct was to spend the next fifteen minutes in the shower, letting the hot water thaw out his ice-cold body. But his stomach vocalized its own needs far louder than the chill in his skin, and Sherlock beelined into the tiny kitchen.

The space was dark and cramped, the tiny window over the sink doing little to let in enough of the sunrise to shake the sensation of subterranean existence from Sherlock’s mind.

When he turned on the light, the bulb flickered and died, and Sherlock sighed. To his relief, only the light had failed, the hob buzzing to life as he flicked on the gas and lit the element. Setting the kettle to boil, he rummaged about in a box of miscellaneous things, emerging triumphant with a bulb clutched in one hand.

With the help of a rickety chair—the flat came sparsely furnished with outdated furniture—Sherlock unscrewed the dead bulb and replaced it with a new one.

He flicked on the light switch, and nothing happened. Glaring up at the unresponsive bulb, he added _faulty wiring_ to his list of faults with the flat, beneath _next to no insulation_ and _mould in the corners._

Just as the kettle whistled, Sherlock’s phone buzzed. He fished it out of his pocket and removed the kettle from the element, opening a cupboard to grab a mug as he read the text. It was from Lestrade, one simple line:

_I’ll see what I can do._

Tucking the phone away with a satisfied little smile, Sherlock popped a teabag in his mug and poured the hot water. He watched colour seep out of the sachet, eyes sinking half-closed as the steam billowed up from the mouth of the cup and warmed his face. The tip of his nose burned with cold, and he tilted forward with a grateful hum for the heat.

He jumped a second later as a mug tipped off the top shelf of the cupboard without warning. It shattered on impact, scattering pale blue crockery shrapnel over the floor. Frowning down at the mess, Sherlock gingerly picked his way out to the sitting room, wincing when he set his foot down on a shard and shifted aside before it could cut through his sock.

There was a broom in the small closet next to the front door. After shutting the cupboard with a wary glare, Sherlock swept up the mess with careful attention, hunting down the smaller pieces beneath the stove and fridge.

Just as he was shaking the last of the broken mug into a cardboard box, the cupboard over the hob banged open. Sherlock froze, blinking up at the gaping cabinet. It was empty, and he blew out a slow breath. His relief was premature, as another cupboard slammed open. It bounced into the neighbouring cabinet door, and a plate slid off the shelf.

It hit the counter, cracked down the middle, and landed in the sink in three pieces.

Eyes wide, Sherlock crossed the kitchen with the dustbin in one hand and the cardboard box in the other. He stared into the sink at the broken plate, looked up at the open cupboard, and barely managed to duck as it slammed shut. “Stop that!” he shouted, whirling as he straightened to his full height and brandished the dustbin at the empty room.

No answer came, the cupboards still, no one in the tiny, cramped flat but Sherlock.

Sherlock dropped the cardboard box in the sink with the plate with adrenaline humming through his body, left the dustbin on the floor, and decided the shower could wait until he talked to Lestrade.

* * *

Lestrade took one look at Sherlock when he entered his office and stated, “You look like you spent the night in a ditch.”

“It’s my new flat.” Sherlock dropped heavily into a chair. He sprawled and kicked his booted feet beneath the table, shivering in his coat. Even wrapped in the Belstaff, his only nice piece of clothing and a congratulatory gift from Mycroft for completing rehab, he couldn’t stop shivering.

“That bad, huh?” Lestrade looked him over with a pitying eye.

“You can’t imagine,” Sherlock grumbled. Tensing against another shiver, he sat up and planted his hands palm-down on the desk. “Did you get that case file I asked for?”

“Oh, yeah. I did.” With a kick, Lestrade pushed his chair back and pulled open a drawer. He retrieved a file and set it between them. “521 Montague Street, five years ago.” Frowning at the folder, he glanced up at Sherlock with a furrowed brow. “Why’d you want it?”

“Because this is my new flat,” Sherlock muttered, reaching out to take the file. Ignoring Lestrade’s noise of confused surprise, he flipped it open and looked at the photos. His eyes darted over the images, eyebrows dropping down and drawing together.

He was right. It _wasn’t_ damp on the walls and ceiling. Sometimes he hated being right.

“Jesus, Sherlock, you couldn’t have found a better place?”

Looking up from the file, Sherlock blinked. “You ruled the death as a suicide. Perfectly safe.”

Lestrade shook his head and sighed. “That’s not what I meant. Hell, it might have been five years ago, but if that place is anything like it was when I went in, it’s not fit for habitation.”

“They cleaned up the blood,” Sherlock said absently, flipping through the morgue reports. “Mostly.”

“Yeah, well, I meant the mould,” Lestrade muttered, to which Sherlock shrugged.

Seeing that Lestrade seemed set on pressing the matter, he said in a quiet voice, “It’s what I could afford. It’s not great, I know. But it’s mine.”

Lestrade opened his mouth to reply but closed it after searching Sherlock’s face. He nodded and leaned back in his chair, hands folded over his stomach. “Alright.” Clearing his throat, he tilted his jaw toward the case file. “Why do you want that? Just curious?”

“Something like that,” Sherlock murmured, his attention focused on the papers in his hands. A detail in one of the photos caught his eye, and he held the glossy picture close to his face. There was something off about the image, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Still staring at the photo, he asked, “Can I take this with me?” Raising his eyes, he met Lestrade’s curious gaze. “It’s an old closed case. Not likely someone will miss it for a few days.”

With apparent reluctance, Lestrade finally nodded. “Yeah, alright. But don’t lose any of the photos.”

Scoffing, Sherlock stood and pulled his coat tight around him. “As if I would do that.”

Lestrade just raised his eyebrows and silently waved Sherlock out of his office. Sherlock left as ordered, the case file tucked inside his jacket. He still felt cold, and the thought of a hot, steamy shower quickened his pace.

* * *

Back inside his dark, cramped little flat, Sherlock stripped out of his clothes and pushed aside the shower curtain. The tub was old and small, the colour of custard with rusted fixings. Sherlock furrowed his brow down at the offensive rust ring around the drain before he shivered hard enough to rattle his teeth and stepped inside.

The tap creaked when he turned it, the pipes clanking and groaning in the walls. It sounded like some great beast had woken within the framework of the building, growling its cumbersome way toward freedom.

Closing his eyes against the disturbing image, Sherlock tilted his face toward the showerhead, waiting for warmth.

The water came out ice-cold, and he jumped, voicing a shocked shout. It slowly warmed at a glacial pace that left him shifting from one foot to the other as goosebumps rippled over his body.

Just as he reached for the shampoo, the light flickered and went out, plunging Sherlock into an absolute dark. If not for the sound of water hitting against the porcelain beneath his feet, Sherlock might have believed himself lost in the void.

He fumbled for the shampoo and soaped his hair in the dark, lathering soap over his body and rinsing off with his eyes open wide in the thick black. The small, humid bathroom lacked even the faintest light required to see, and it was a futile attempt.

Shutting the shower off by feel alone, Sherlock groped for the curtain and drew it back just as the light came back on. “Great timing,” he muttered, soaking hair dripping little puddles on the floor. In the act of reaching for his towel, Sherlock froze with his eyes fixed on the fogged mirror.

Written in the haze left by the shower’s steam, thick and sloppy as if scribed with the tip of an unsteady finger, was a single word:

_Leave._


	2. Hell or High Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up for a case file involving a past suicide, mentions of depression and PTSD, and overdose (all in past-tense).

It was a sleepless night.

Sherlock lay beneath the thin blanket, gripping the edge with clawed hands, and stared up at the stain on the ceiling. His closed door rattled, and the walls creaked, the floor groaning with unseen footsteps. He stared at the marks until his eyes burned and stared some more.

When the beeping of his alarm sounded with the rising sun, Sherlock blinked his stinging eyelids shut. A soft groan escaped his lips, eyes flying open at a violent, crashing sound in the kitchen. He lay still, holding his breath, and waited for further noise.

The flat was cold and silent, coaxing Sherlock out from beneath his thin covers. He dressed with sluggish motions and stood before the bedroom door with one hand hovering over the knob. Drawing a weak sense of confidence about him, Sherlock walked out into the kitchen. Broken crockery cracked beneath his feet, and he was grateful that he had thought to pull on his boots before leaving the bedroom.

Instead of lingering to take in the damage, Sherlock made for the front door. Snagging the case file off the sofa, he pulled on his Belstaff and slipped out into the hall, catching the faint, musical tinkle of shattering glass inside the flat.

Rolling his shoulders back, he tucked the case file into his jacket and walked toward the lift.

* * *

Seated at a corner table in a cafe two blocks from his flat, armed with a lukewarm coffee, Sherlock huddled deeper into his coat. The stool was rickety, legs clicking against the floor as he tried to get warm, an incessant chill lingering in his body despite the brisk walk to the cafe.

He sipped the coffee, pulled a face, and flipped open the folder set before him on the table.

The case write-up told a brief, simple story. After receiving a phone call from one of the neighbouring flats, police arrived to investigate a loud noise. The caller said they heard gunshots, and the police came prepared for possible violence.

They found the victim lying in his bed, declared dead at the scene after taking a bullet in the head. After a brief investigation, the police ruled the incident a suicide and closed the case. Remembering the height and spray of the blood spatter stain on the ceiling and walls, Sherlock barely glanced at the first few photos, knowing what he would see.

He idled on the last, studying the man as they found him. His hair was dishwater-blonde, a mixture of various browns mixed through with flaxen yellow and silvery grey. Though the camera angle and the fact that he was lying down made it harder to gauge, he looked short and compact. Dressed in pyjama bottoms and nothing more, the man’s chest and shoulders were broad, his stomach a little soft but unmistakably muscled, his arms thick where they lay at his sides. The skin of his face and hands were marked by sun damage.

Something in the photo didn’t sit right with Sherlock, and he frowned, setting the picture aside to sift through the collected evidence.

It was clear to him that the police had pursued an explanation that fit their suspicious: suicide. Sherlock wasn’t surprised. It was a common enough practice to build off a working theory. While he couldn’t fault Lestrade for the direction he’d steered the investigation, it still irked him. Time and again, Sherlock told the DI to follow something other than what he was taught. To listen to his gut and analyze the scene from all possible angles.

Because something didn’t add up.

The evidence told a compelling story, but Sherlock wasn’t buying it. He flipped through medical records, glancing briefly over notes from a psychiatrist. His eyes darted over the page as he speed-read before catching on a particular section.

> _Client shows no improvement of depressive affect. Reluctant to engage and surly when he does. It is apparent that he is not adjusting well to civilian life, and any coping suggestions are either ignored or barely attempted. Fearing for a progression in his deteriorating mental state, I am prescribing an antidepressant and a sleeping aid. Will follow up in our next monthly session._

According to the paperwork, the victim filled both prescriptions. Still, his tox-screen showed only traces of a common, mild tranquillizer, no doubt the sleep aid prescribed by the psychiatrist. It seemed the antidepressant, though filled, was never taken.

Sherlock leaned back in his chair and frowned. He sipped absently at his coffee, pulling a face when he found it cold and set it back on the table as he tilted over the folder again.

While the psychiatrist’s notes, paired with the ignored antidepressant prescription, seemed to reinforce the possibility of suicide, Sherlock’s attention kept returning to the tox screen. The quantity of tranquillizer in the man’s system was no higher than a regular dose. If anything, it was less, as if the victim took half the prescribed amount.

Fingers pressed together beneath his lips, Sherlock closed his eyes.

Why would someone with a means of a more painless death—tranquillizer overdose—opt for a gun? Sure, it was more common for men to attempt suicide in more violent, aggressive fashions. And pills were not always successful, but something still didn’t add up, and a snippet of the psychiatrist’s note hummed through Sherlock's head.

_It is apparent that he is not adjusting well to civilian life._

Eyes popping open, Sherlock sorted through the papers until he found the one he was looking for, the victim profile.

> _John Hamish Watson._
> 
> _DOB: April 23, 1971._
> 
> _Deceased: January 26, 2010._
> 
> _Cause of Death: Suicide utilizing an illegal service revolver._
> 
> _Occupation: Former army-doctor of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers stationed in Helmand, Afghanistan._
> 
> _Additional: Invalided to London due to gunshot wound to the left shoulder. Extensive nerve damage. No known affiliations with terror groups or mercenaries. Diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder by Doctor Ella Thompson._
> 
> _Case Status: This case ruled closed._

An army-doctor, invalided home, diagnosed with pervasive mental health disorders, found dead by suicide in his flat after neighbours reported gunshots. It seemed cut-and-dried. But then...

Gun _shots?_ Plural?

Sherlock flipped through the papers again, seizing the disturbance report. There was a transcript of the 999 call, and his eyes fastened on a particular section.

> _Caller: I think I heard gunshots next door._
> 
> _Operator: Okay, sir, I’m sending a unit your way. Can you confirm that it was multiple gunshots?_
> 
> _Caller: Yes. Two, I think._

Multiple gunshots in the apparent suicide of a man with professional training in handling weapons. By all logic, he would not have needed more than one shot nor been able to fire twice. The autopsy report listed only one injury on the corpse, and no other bullets were logged at the scene, meaning none were found lodged in the walls or the floor.

Why would a man take sleeping pills only to shoot himself shortly after? Why would an ex-military man need to fire more than once, as he seemed to have done, and where did the second bullet go?

Nothing added up. The more Sherlock read the less the case sounded like a real suicide, the more his suspicions grew that there was more to the story.

Everything pointed to John Watson’s death being _staged_ as a suicide. And, with that in mind, Sherlock swept the pages and photos into the folder and stood. Sherlock dropped his cold coffee in the trash and left the cafe, tucking the file back into his jacket. His strides were quick and urgent, blood buzzing with a feeling close enough to his drug of choice that Sherlock almost felt a surge of longing for his days of cocaine abuse. But he pushed the whim aside and quickened his pace, hurrying back to his flat with vigour.

Because, suddenly, Sherlock Holmes thought he might have been wrong about ghosts. A quote swam up from the depths of his memory. Some half-deleted snippet from an unidentifiable somewhere that whispered in his ear with the wind as he nearly ran back to his dingy flat:

_Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that's what._

Sherlock meant it when he told his new landlord that he wasn't afraid of death or of ghosts. He _wasn't_ afraid. But he might have to adjust his world views in order to take on a case from a client that, thus far, had only communicated to him via flickering lights and broken dishware.

Come hell or high water, Sherlock would solve the mystery of the late John Watson's death.


	3. Call and Response

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Def not having this fic finished by today, but at least I can update it. Happy Spooky Day! 🎃👻

Sherlock poured over the case file with hair still damp from the shower, studying the photos of the scene and the autopsy report well into the afternoon. He read over John Watson’s psychiatric notes. When finished, he used Mycroft's credentials to read the rest by hacking into and overriding Ella Thompson’s privacy settings on her patient files.

The notes painted a grim picture of John Watson’s last months as a living man. When he did talk to the mental health professional, which seemed to be close to never, his words outlined a drab existence. Just reading about the sheer emptiness of the man’s life made Sherlock’s skin crawl. It reminded him of his own affinity for boredom, his constant need for stimulation and engagement. Hence the cocaine and his high-risk work.

Sherlock couldn’t help but wonder if, in a different universe, some parallel world where he and John Watson met for real, he might have been able to change things. John Watson was a soldier once before he was sent back to London with a psychosomatic limp, PTSD, a grave injury, and no support. Sherlock couldn’t help but think his lifestyle might have been a welcome deviation from the dull, bland path John’s life took.

Shaking the thoughts away, Sherlock woke his laptop screen from its premature sleep and settled back into his reading.

* * *

He woke to the sound of static. Without meaning to, Sherlock must have nodded off, the two consecutive nights of poor sleep catching up to him with the force of a freight train. A page of John Watson’s autopsy report peeled off his cheek as he sat back, stuck there by dried drool. It fluttered back to the table as Sherlock turned toward the television with a frown. He hadn't turned it on… had he?

The screen showed white, snowy static. The image was warped by a cascading fall of pixels that played havoc on Sherlock’s tired, blurry vision. As he continued to gawk at the view, noise filled the small, dank flat. It started as a low hum and swiftly rose to the discordant shriek of senseless racket, the crackle of empty airwaves.

Sherlock clapped hands over his ears and grimaced. The sound only built, filtering through no matter how hard he pressed his palms to the sides of his head. When it reached a crescendo, loud enough to make his teeth rattle, Sherlock jumped to his feet and shouted, “Stop it!” The sound did not diminish. If anything, it only intensified until Sherlock wondered how none of his neighbours were banging on his door and demanding silence.

Teeth clenched together, he crossed the room, face twisting with pain as the noise assaulted his ears. The closer he came, the worse it grew until he was standing in front of the television with it screeching at him like a banshee.

He kicked the cord out of the wall, and the television shut off with a crackle. Ears ringing in the blessed silence, Sherlock dropped his hands back to his sides with a relieved sigh. No sooner had they fallen when the screen clicked back on, and the same hellish noise shrieked from the speakers.

“For the love of—!” Sherlock slammed a hand against the plastic housing to no avail. Covering his ears again, he shut his eyes tightly. “Stop it!” he said into the empty flat, shouting to be heard over the din. “I get it, you’re angry! But it’s not my fault.” When no reply was forthcoming, only the same awful noise, he cried out, “I want to _help_ you!” The static rose, nearly drowning him out until he was yelling over it. “I know you didn’t kill yourself, and I want to help, but I can’t if you _keep terrorizing me!”_

The noise cut off abruptly, leaving Sherlock’s words ringing in the silence. It sounded thoughtful, almost calculating. Sherlock held his breath, waiting for judgement. A cupboard swung open in the kitchen, a glass jumping out to shatter on the counter. Somehow, it sounded like a question, and Sherlock turned toward the display with a wary expression on his face.

“I don’t think you took your own life,” Sherlock said cautiously, eyes fixed on the open cupboard as he hesitated in the kitchen entrance. “I think someone killed you and made it look like you did.” After a pause, he wet his dry lips and added, “And stop breaking my dishes. Um. Please.”

Silence met his request, but since none of his other now-fairly-limited dishware met its doom against the counter or floor, he took that as a sign of agreement. Huffing out a quiet breath, Sherlock nodded and turned back to the sitting room, muttering, “Thank you.”

The cupboard door slammed shut behind him, making Sherlock jump, but no further mischief followed. With burning eyes and heavy lids, Sherlock gathered the contents of John Watson’s case file together, tapped them into order, and slid them back into the folder. It was early evening and, despite his nap, Sherlock felt weighed down by exhaustion and poor sleep.

He retreated to the bathroom to brush his teeth and relieve his bladder, keeping a careful eye on the ceiling light. To his relief, it stayed on, and he finished his ablutions in relative peace before retreating to the bedroom. It seemed untouched and unhaunted, the only reminder of his strange flatmate the grisly stains on the wall and ceiling.

Gaze fixed on the marks, Sherlock stripped down to his pants and crawled onto the bed. He tried to tell himself he only imagined the sensation of being watched as he slipped beneath the thin blanket. Despite his earlier feeling of fatigue, he lay awake, staring up at the ceiling with its faint stain, hands kneading at the hem of the comforter beneath his chin with fretful fingers.

He couldn’t get John Watson out of his head. Sherlock felt as haunted as his flat, turning the case over and over as his brain refused to settle, pinging about from corner to corner in his Mind Palace while he tried to find a thread of reason.

Why kill John? Had he known something that put him in danger? Was his murder tied to his military injury, his death in London just the final outcome of a failed bullet in a desert warzone? Someone finishing the job?

No matter how he turned it over, tried to look at it, Sherlock didn’t have enough information. Usually, he interviewed those involved in the case to create a cohesive picture of what occurred. He read people with the same ease he read files. With the case ruled a suicide and presenting no leads (and the trail lying several years cold), Sherlock had no one to approach. Unless he counted the spirit who seemed hell-bent on destroying his few worldly possessions and deafening him with television static, there was no one to interview. Unless...

Sherlock sat upright with a start, shoving the sheets down to his waist. Goosebumps rippled over his bare torso, flowing down his arms and making him shiver. But he was lost deep in his head, caught by flickering inspiration that he struggled to fan into a flame.

People said they talked to ghosts. It was likely all fake. A means of providing entertainment with the so-called ‘paranormal.’ Sherlock never placed much weight on the claims of those who spoke of experiences with the supernatural, but things changed. Now, he was one of those people, caught in a strange phenomenon with an unlikely victim of an unsolved murder case, and the reality of far too many broken dishes.

Still sitting upright with the blankets pooled in his lap, Sherlock swallowed and peered into the dark with tentative eyes. Maybe things weren’t what they seemed.

Maybe… maybe it was that simple?

Swallowing, his mouth desert-dry, Sherlock parted his lips, hesitated, and called out, “John Watson?” In the ensuing silence, he felt embarrassed and a little ridiculous, but something compelled him to keep at it, and he cleared his throat before trying again. “John Watson, can you hear me?” Nothing. Nothing but the faint sound of cars driving by outside and the wind wheezing through the cracks in the poorly-insulated window frame. Never one to give up easily, Sherlock raised his voice for one last effort. “John Watson?” Cold rippled over his body before he saw it—the faintest of flickers in the corner of the room. Eyes locked on the tentative illumination, Sherlock shifted to the edge of the bed, asking in a hushed voice, “John?”

The flicker wavered, shifted, nearly died out before strengthening into a shape vaguely humanoid, sucking away the warmth in the room as it solidified and taking Sherlock’s breath with it. Just as he opened his mouth to repeat the query, it came. A voice like a brittle, winter wind, a whisper in the dark that slid over Sherlock’s skin like a lover’s touch.

“Yes.”

Excitement making his tongue clumsy, Sherlock grinned and breathed, _“John.”_


	4. First Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock meets his ghostly flatmate face-to-face. It doesn't go as hoped.

In slow, creeping fashion, the flicker in the corner of his bedroom grew. It wavered, an ephemeral embodiment of energy and light. Sitting up with the thin sheets clasped tight in his white-knuckled hands, Sherlock watched the illumination flare, sharpen, solidify until it hurt his eyes to look directly at it. But look he did, squinting against the burn, eyelashes painting a spidery curtain over the edges of his sight. 

With one last flash, the light abated as quickly as it appeared, and Sherlock saw a man standing in the corner of his room. Saw him and saw _through_ him, the intangible form of his visitor tenuously incorporeal. Despite the wavering image, Sherlock recognized the man’s face as the one from the case file, and he sucked in a breath before letting it out in a soft, “John Watson?”

A stretch of vibrating silence followed his question, the edges of the man’s figure blending and warping with the dark shadows of the room. The effect was unsettling, like an optical illusion or a desert mirage, and Sherlock pressed his teeth into his bottom lip to suppress a shiver. He could do little about the goosebumps rippling over his body, mottling his skin and making the fine hairs stand at attention on the nape of his neck. 

Ultimately, his impatient curiousity got the best of him, and he demanded, “You _are_ John Watson, yes?” 

“I guess so.” The ghostly man in the corner of the room hesitated, tongue darting out to wet his pale and intangible lips in what looked like a nervous tic. “At least, I _was.”_ John looked around the room before raising his hand and peering through it with a look of deep sorrow on his face. The sight of it made Sherlock quiver in a strange rush of unexpected sympathy. “Not really sure what I am now.”

A multitude of questions rushed through Sherlock’s mind, each running along on the heels of the other. He tried to pick one, just one. But they filtered through too quickly and, when Sherlock opened his mouth, what emerged was a sulky demand of, “Why do you keep breaking all my dishes?”

If it was possible to catch a ghost off guard, John Watson was. He looked taken-aback, blinking for a second before he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. The image was almost maddening in how human it was, and Sherlock burned with fascination. 

Not only were ghosts _real_ — unless he was dreaming, which was, he had to admit, a possibility—but they did things like lick their lips and look embarrassed. The simplicity of the situation thrilled Sherlock to no end, and he leaned forward eagerly.

“Well?” he pressed when there was no response to his question. John’s apparent embarrassment was brilliant in its mundanity. Sherlock burned for an answer. 

The apparition avoided his eyes and muttered something intangible. It felt like a whisper of frigid air, and, shivering, Sherlock pulled the blankets higher. 

“What?”

John’s sigh was the jagged bite of winter, his hazy outline flaring with a pale light. “I hoped it would convince you to leave.”

Eyebrows shooting up, Sherlock tightened his hold on the blankets. “Why?”

“Because you _should_ leave.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “That’s not really an answer.”

There was a hint of challenge in John’s voice as he replied, “Maybe I can’t give you a proper answer.”

Intrigued by the strange response, Sherlock leaned forward again. His body buzzed with eager energy, the biting cold momentarily ignored in favour of chasing something he found thrilling. “Is that a… is it like a ghost… rule?” he asked, searching for the right word, voice quickening with his rising excitement. “You can’t tell me things directly?”

John’s expression flickered through a series of emotions, first shock, then confusion, then cautious, surprised humour. “Uh, no,” he said, then paused and added, “At least, not that I know of.”

“Then why won’t you answer me?” Sherlock demanded, his bottom lip pushing out into a pout. 

Again, John’s eyes slid away. His tongue reappeared, sweeping over his bottom lip before it disappeared back into his mouth. “Because I don’t want to.” He looked directly at Sherlock and pursed his lips. “You really should just leave.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Sherlock snapped, piqued by the ghost’s audacity at trying to order him out of his own flat. “And don’t tell me what to do.” 

John’s brows dropped, and he frowned. His face was deeply expressive, his displeasure obvious in the way his forehead creased, in the lines appearing at the corners of his thin lips. “You sound like a child.” He studied Sherlock for a moment, his eyes wary. “ _Are_ you a child? You look about twelve.” 

Bristling, Sherlock’s lip curled back in a snarl. “I’m in my twenties!” 

“Oh, so you’re just an idiot, then?” John’s words sounded sharp and harsh, making Sherlock wince. 

This was not going anything like how he’d hoped. Maybe he needed to try a fresh approach. 

“I know you were murdered,” he said and felt a flicker of satisfaction when John jerked in apparent surprise. Before the apparition could reply, Sherlock rushed on. “I read your case file—I work with NSY sometimes, so I have access—and even though they listed your death as a suicide, I don’t think it was.” He fixed John with a hard stare. “I don’t think you killed yourself.” 

To his dismay, he saw John’s expression close off, that expressive face going stiff and flat. 

“You should leave,” he said as if Sherlock had never spoken at all. 

Frustrated, Sherlock threw off the blankets and rose to his feet. He wore nothing but his pants, and the cold floor underfoot, paired with the freezing environment of the room, set him to shaking. He ignored his half-nude appearance, holding his ground as he rubbed futilely at his arms. He saw John’s eyes dart over his form before returning to his face. 

His expression tensed, and he looked worried. Uneasy. 

“You should leave,” he repeated, but Sherlock just came forward, shivering and trying to ignore it in his earnestness. 

“You didn’t kill yourself,” he said, moving closer. The cold surrounding John was like walking into an invisible wall of ice, and his steps faltered. He thought he could actually feel his lips turning blue with the chill and pressed them hard together. “I _know_ you didn’t.”

John’s eyes widened as Sherlock came closer, and he raised a hand, ordering a halt. “Don’t—don’t come any closer,” he said, voice rising. “You can’t know for sure how I died.”

“But I _can_ ,” Sherlock insisted, ignoring the warning. “I _do.”_ He came closer, teeth beginning to chatter no matter how hard he clenched his jaw. Body shaking in full-form shivers, he tensed his muscles and looked down at John, startled to find he was taller than the dead man. “I know you didn’t kill yourself.”

John’s face darkened at his words, the expression sudden and fierce. The cold deepened to a frigid bite that sank deep into Sherlock’s body, worming its way through his skin, down to his veins and chilling his blood. With the sensation came a strange, paralyzing sense of dread that suffused him entirely. His teeth rattled and clicked together in rapid-fire shivers, and it took all his control to remain where he was when all he wanted was to flee.

“You don’t _know_ me,” John snapped, his voice sounding strangely doubled. It seemed to come both from his mouth and from the very walls of the flat. The effect made Sherlock wince, the words vibrating through his mind. “You don’t know what I might have done — you _can’t.”_

“John—”Sherlock began, desperate to help without reason. He was aching for answers without understanding why they were so important. Because John was right, and Sherlock didn’t know him. Beyond the case file and his own assumptions, John was a stranger. A _dead_ stranger, but Sherlock no more knew him than he really, truly knew any of the dead people whose cases he solved. 

It had always been for his own entertainment, something to keep his mind distracted from the boredom, the wanting for drugs, the lack of humanity in his life. If someone asked Sherlock why convincing John that he knew him was so important, he knew he wouldn’t have an answer. 

He only knew that it was important, was _crucial,_ that John know Sherlock understood him. Or thought he did. And he really thought that he did — that he _might_ know John because John was just like him. Dead, but cut from the same cloth.

But John resisted. He refused to listen, and the cold blasting through Sherlock reminded him of the time he’d fallen through the icy surface of a frozen lake as a child. He’d kicked and struggled, only for the frigid water to seep into his body, paralyzing his muscles and lungs and dragging him down until his father plucked him from the depths.

Sherlock shook the memory away, refocusing as he realized John was speaking. 

“Stop trying to help me,” John said. That unsettling doubling effect still lingered, the order rippling through Sherlock’s mind. It was like a visceral touch, like clawed hands passing over his brain. It made him shiver, skin prickling with revulsion. 

“But—” he tried in one last-ditch effort to make the ghost of John Watson see reason. 

He wouldn’t. Face tight and strained, John snapped, “Just — just _leave_. You need to leave.” 

Sherlock opened his mouth to respond, but there was a flash of light, and he stumbled back. It forced him to throw up his hands before his face, shielding his eyes from the bright flare, the violence of the display drawing a shocked sound from his numb lips. 

When it abated and he dropped his hands again, John no longer stood before him, the cold disappearing with the apparition. Instead of looking at the hazy shape of the flat’s previous tenant, Sherlock was standing in the corner of his bedroom and staring at an empty wall. 


	5. Like a Dog with a Bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> True to his stubborn nature, Sherlock refuses to take John's advice and continues to investigate his untimely death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all can thank InkatHeart for this early update. I was going to post it tomorrow, but she needed some fic distraction asap. 
> 
> I hope it helps distract from your chaotic cats, luv!

Sherlock spent the night wide awake. No matter how hard sleep tried to drag him under, he fought against it. His brain buzzed with incessant frustration, mind whirling through a series of escalating thoughts as Sherlock tried to make sense of John’s rigid refusal of his offer to help. 

It was rare for Sherlock to be wrong, and the flat out contradiction of John’s words to facts Sherlock _thought_ he knew burned. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d failed in some way, and that only made him more determined to crack the case.

Blankets clutched to his chin, the dissipated chill having sunk deep into his body and the air of the room itself, Sherlock stared at the corner where John had stood the night before. He stared, and he wondered, and he plotted, and when the sun rose, his eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion, but he was more convinced of his deductions than ever. 

Dragging himself out of bed, shivering at the touch of the icy floor underfoot, Sherlock shuffled into the bathroom. He shifted from one foot to the other, rubbing at his arms in an attempt to appease the goosebumps rising on his bare skin. Just as Sherlock started cursing his choice to sleep in nothing but his pants, the shower warmed. With steam coiling around him, he hopped into the tub and scrubbed vigorously at his body until it was pink and stinging. 

The scalding water pulled the chill from his skin, but it still lingered in his bones. Despite the discomfort it brought, Sherlock felt odd gratitude for the reminder of his meeting with John. Even though the apparition had effectively dismissed Sherlock’s theories, the cold sunk into his body made him believe it hadn’t all been just a dream. 

But, as Sherlock washed suds off his long body, turning slowly beneath the spray, he realized it didn’t matter if it had been a dream or not. The fact of the matter was that _something_ occupied his flat — dishes rarely threw themselves to their death on their own — and Sherlock was just as determined to get to the root of things as before, if not doubly so.

He shampooed his hair quickly, rinsing and shutting off the water before he pushed back the shower curtain and stepped outside. Ignoring the puddle forming at his feet, he towelled off, finger-combed his hair and squeezed some of the moisture out of the clinging curls. 

Tossing the towel over the rack, he stomped into the bedroom, threw on clean pants and a thick robe before pulling on two pairs of socks. The floor was winter-cold, and Sherlock didn’t want the simple act of shivering to distract him from his work. 

The kitchen was as glacial as the rest of the flat, and Sherlock stood close to the kettle as the hob warmed, body greedily soaking in the welcomed heat from the element. Hands stuffed into his armpits beneath the robe for warmth, Sherlock stared at the kettle as it rumbled its way toward a boil. It took a bit for him to find a mug that hadn’t become a victim to the wrath of John Watson’s ghost, but he located one, at last, shoved to the back of the cupboard. 

The second the kettle screeched, Sherlock snatched it up and poured the water. He clutched the mug in his hands, luxuriating in the heat until it threatened to burn his palms, and retreated to the living room. 

Files from John’s case covered the small table, spread over its surface in Sherlock’s patented brand of organized chaos. He dropped into a chair and looked over the mess, his mind already picking away at the problem. 

He spent the morning combing through the notes and crime scene photos, studying every bit of information available. Pausing only to make more tea, filling and re-boiling the kettle once it was empty, Sherlock let the morning pass by and fade into the afternoon. He only stopped when his stomach began to cramp and growl, reminding him he hadn’t fed it anything but over-steeped tea. 

Downing the last of his mug, Sherlock pushed the chair away from the table and tilted his head back, eyes closing. 

Despite a rigorous re-read of the case file, his conclusions were the same. John Watson’s death was _clearly_ a murder. Nevermind that NSY ruled it a suicide, nevermind the adamant disagreement from his phantom visitor the night before. No matter how he read the data, the results were the same. 

It was murder, not suicide. Sherlock couldn’t see any other possibility. 

Stomach still grumbling, Sherlock lifted his hands to his face and pressed them over his aching eyes. He balled them into fists and tried to rub away the gritty feeling of missed sleep, but it persisted, and he slumped in the chair with a groan. 

“It wasn’t a suicide,” he muttered, hands falling back into his lap. He glared at the detritus spread out in front of him, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he clenched his teeth in a fit of pique. “You hear that?” Voice rising, Sherlock addressed the cold, draughty space of the flat, working himself up for a strop. “I _know_ you didn’t kill yourself, and I don’t care if you say otherwise!” 

A cabinet flew open in the kitchen, and a plate skidded out onto the floor, where it shattered. The atmosphere of the flat changed, almost petulant, and Sherlock jabbed a furious finger toward the kitchen. 

“Go ahead and break all the plates you want,” he snapped, refusing to back down from John’s tantrum, even as a second dish joined the first in an untimely demise. “I’m going to keep investigating, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me because you’re not even alive!”

The mug set before him, thankfully empty, shot off the table and crashed into the wall next to the door. Startled by the sudden proximity of John’s phantom ire, Sherlock jumped before he forced himself to still, feigning disinterest in the destruction. 

“That the best you can do?” he challenged. A span of quiet peace stretched out, and Sherlock wondered if he’d managed to force John into seeing reason.

Seconds, later, as a wayward wind rose and stirred the case files on the table in a clear threat, he realized he was mistaken.

“Don’t you dare!” Sherlock growled. Scrambling to gather the papers and photos, he stuffed them back into the file folder and tucked it against his chest. As if angered by him foiling its chaos, the wind grew into a wild gale, shrieking through the flat. It whistled around the doorways and tossed the moth-eaten curtains, flinging bits of broken crockery across the floor. It tore through the sitting room, disturbing a booklet of sheet music and sending pages of notations into the air like the debris of a storm. 

Sherlock glared about the room. He backed toward the sofa, ready to take cover if anything larger than a booklet took flight. “You don’t scare me,” he said, raising his voice over the din. “You hear me? I’m not scared of you! Keep it up all you want, but I’m _not leaving.”_

Silence met his statement, the wind dying down as suddenly as it appeared. Hesitant to accept the quiet as lasting, Sherlock blew out a short breath through his teeth. When the flat remained silent and calm, he sagged down onto the sofa with a relieved sound escaping his lips. 

With the case file still clutched to his chest, he spoke to the room at large, muttering, “Thank you.” He waited for a response, received none, and sighed. His neighbours must think him mad, breaking dishes and shouting to no one. 

Sherlock couldn’t blame them — he’d consider himself crazy if he hadn’t seen the truth with his own two eyes. 

He slipped the case file back out from under his robe and set it into a lap, one long-fingered hand splayed over the cover. “I’m going to figure it out,” he said in a soft voice, unaware if he was speaking to himself or John. Either way, Sherlock meant it, conviction rising within him in a wave of certainty. He couldn’t recall feeling such adamant, persistent determination to see something through.

Whatever it took, like a dog with a bone, he _would_ understand John Watson’s death. 

Looking at his hand atop the folder, Sherlock realized he didn’t know why it was so crucial that he solve the case. Part of it was his usual tenacity, his burning need to _know_ , but that wasn’t the entire reason. There was more to it, even if he couldn’t yet know what that was. 

All he knew was John deserved closure if only so he would stop terrorizing Sherlock day and night with his fits of anger. And he _would_ get to the bottom of it. He was Sherlock Holmes, and this was what he did. He solved cases, and he would solve this one.

But first, he needed to buy a new set of dishes. Judging by the broken bits of plate and bowl on the floor and strewn about the flat by the errant wind, he had little remaining in terms of dishware. If Sherlock was going to keep investigating — and he knew that he was — he would need to buy dishes that were harder to break. 

Rising from the sofa, Sherlock tugged his robe tighter about his thin figure and glared around the flat. “This isn’t over,” he stated, drawing himself up to his full height in a clear challenge. “Not by a long-shot. I have to go out, but I’ll be back, and then we’re going to have a discussion about your appalling attitude.”

A glass shattered against the hob with a clearly disgruntled air. The delicate sound of breaking glass punctuated its demise, and Sherlock rudely flipped two fingers into the air in its direction. 

“The feeling’s mutual, John.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw, this fic has a cover now. Check out chapter one if you wanna see yet another awkward attempt by me to do graphic design.


	6. You Can't Talk to Dead People, Sherlock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestrade learns about John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think updates for this fic will be every Sunday, depending on how much inspiration I have for writing it. So I'll tentatively say, Sunday updates!
> 
> \-------
> 
> Also heads up for mentions of past suicide.

Sherlock stood before a wall of dish sets. Brow furrowed, he eyed the display of available collections. Statements like ‘chip-proof’ and ‘sturdy’ and ‘unbreakable’ jumped out of him. Despite each claim, Sherlock had a feeling John would still manage to shatter each and every single one if he really put his mind to it.

Admitting defeat, he moved into the baby section and selected a set of thick plastic cups, plates and bowls. As long as John Watson’s ghost insisted on behaving like a toddler, Sherlock’s dishes would continue to pay the price. The plastic dishware seemed like the only logical defence, ridiculous as it felt to know he would be eating off dishes meant for a child rather than the limited china that remained.

But there was nothing for it. Armed with the knowledge that he had little choice in the matter, Sherlock marched to the checkout and stubbornly avoided the cashier’s amused expression. Dropping money onto the counter to cover the total, he retrieved his bag of laughable kitchen necessities and hurried out of the store.

Hopefully, if all went well and Sherlock managed to get through to John, the tantrums wouldn’t last too much longer. Then he could have real adult dishes again. For once, he was glad his circle of social callers consisted of one harried DI and a hated older brother. Sherlock didn’t think he could survive having to serve tea in a plastic child’s cup — the traditional Brit in him quailed at the very thought.

The problem was, Sherlock wasn’t entirely sure how to achieve equanimity in the Montague Street flat. Until he solved the case, or John decided to tell him what happened himself, Sherlock was spinning his wheels without direction.

With the dilemma hounding his every step, Sherlock sulked back to his flat with an armful of plastic cups and dishes and a brooding storm cloud over his head.

* * *

The second he unlocked the door and stepped inside the flat, Sherlock felt it. A humming energy filled the space, thickening the air itself. He paused, hand on the door handle, and narrowed his eyes.

Aside from the chaos enacted upon the space by John’s latest tantrum, nothing looked out of place.

Closing the door behind him, Sherlock eased into the room, struggling to keep his steps silent. He moved cautiously, anticipating an intruder. The plastic bag in his hands crinkled with every shift of weight, and he set it gingerly down on the sofa before creeping toward the kitchen.

He stepped over the broken mug against the wall and peeked around the corner, steeling himself for the unexpected, and found everything as he’d left it. There was the kettle on the element, bits of glass twinkling over the hob and shards of porcelain and crockery scattered over the floor. Nothing looked out of place, and Sherlock frowned in bemusement.

He tried to distract himself from the feeling by unpacking his new dishes, but the sensation of wrongness persisted.

It wasn’t long before he abandoned the plastic cups and plates on the counter to resume his search.

After checking the bathroom and bedroom and finding both empty, Sherlock returned to the sitting room. Hands on his hips, he stared around the space. He’d found nothing, no sign of entry or of anything having been disturbed.

And, yet, the flat felt strange. It felt like someone had been inside, the lingering air of an unknown presence lurking. Whatever — or _whoever_ — it was, Sherlock knew it wasn’t John. He had little doubt the ex-flat dweller was anywhere but within the flat itself, but this fading presence felt nothing like John, something Sherlock could tell after barely a week at his new place.

Eyes narrowed, he scanned the room, studying every inch of the place in search of change. His eyes drifted over the table and paused, a chill seeping into his body as he realized something was amiss.

His mouth suddenly dry, Sherlock hurried forward. He grabbed the case file he’d placed back on the table and flipped through. The more he searched, the more he saw what was missing.

With a sinking stomach and a racing heart, Sherlock paged through again, but it was only a cursory search. He already knew that whoever had been in his flat while he was away had taken two of the crime scene photos — one of John’s body as NSY found it upon arriving at the scene, and one of the front door — and the final autopsy report.

But why take that second photo? Sherlock had scoured the images, found nothing of note. Had he missed something? Was there something about the front door that showed John’s death to be a result of outside interference, and not suicide?

Was someone trying to cover their tracks?

His pulse speeding, the sound of it like a rushing, beating drum in his ears, Sherlock sagged against the table. The folder dropped from his lax fingers and hit the floor. It fell open on the fold, sheets spilling out over his feet, their presence ignored by Sherlock as he tried to stave off a creeping sensation of numbness.

Someone had been here. Some stranger had come into _his flat_ and taken crucial evidence from what was a cold case.

_John’s_ case.

“John,” Sherlock breathed, reanimating as cold shock continued to spill through his limbs, turning them leaden and slow. He whirled, stepping on papers and photos and not stopping to care.

Moving to the centre of the room, he looked around desperately. His eyes landed on the broken dishes on the kitchen floor, and he strode into the small space, calling, “John?”

There was no answer. He flipped open a cupboard and pushed it shut. The door banged against the frame and stilled, and Sherlock let out a low growl.

“John!” he snapped, whirling back toward the sitting room. “John, I know you’re here!” Irritation rising, he paced the sitting room and pushed an agitated hand through his curls. The gesture made them stick up in tufts, but Sherlock ignored the mess he’d made of them and spun on his heel with a shout, “You’ve nowhere else to go, John!”

Caught up in his shouting, Sherlock didn’t notice the sound of approaching footsteps. When the door creaked open, and Sherlock belatedly realized the lock needed replacing, he was too distracted by yelling at the empty room to catch on.

“Come on, John — I know you’re listening!”

“Sherlock?”

Startled by the voice, his brain lagging in surprise, Sherlock breathed, “John?”

But, as he turned with hope, he saw Lestrade standing in the doorway, and his face fell.

“No, not John,” Lestrade replied, brow furrowed as he looked around the room. “Is that who you were talking to?” Glancing over his shoulder, he looked back at Sherlock with a bemused expression. “I didn’t pass anyone in the hall.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Sherlock snapped, still caught off-guard by Lestrade’s sudden appearance. “John lives here, and — hold on, how did you get in?”

“Lock’s broken.” Waving at the door, Lestrade stepped into the room and closed it behind him. He peered into the kitchen, frowning at the broken dishes, and down the hallway. “God, Sherlock, it’s a mess in here!” Turning back to Sherlock, he eyed the case files spread over the floor, the broken mug next to the door. “Have a party, did you?”

Rolling his eyes at Lestrade’s obtuseness, Sherlock waved his words away. “Me, a party? Do you know me at all?”

“Well, you did just get out of rehab,” Lestrade began before wincing. It was a low blow, and they both knew it.

“It was never like that!” Sherlock growled, shooting him a sharp glare. “You _know_ I used alone.”

Lestrade raised his hands in an apologetic gesture. “I know, that wasn’t fair. I’m sorry. But, really, Sherlock, this place is a death trap. What’s with all the broken dishes? I can’t imagine your flatmate is okay with this.”

“I’m going to clean it up,” Sherlock muttered distractedly, turning in a circle as he searched the flat for a flicker of light, an opened cupboard, for any sign of John. Finding none, he huffed as Lestrade’s words sank in, and he spun on the DI. “Hold on — what do you mean, ‘flatmate?’ I haven’t got a flatmate.”

Lestrade looked up from nudging a piece of the broken mug with his boot, and his eyebrows rose. “Hm? Oh, yeah — John? Didn’t you start to say someone named John lived here, too? Wait…” his eyes narrowed, brows dropping down in confusion. “Isn’t this a one-bedroom?” A flicker of understanding bloomed in his face, followed by a faint flush of colour. “Ah, unless… I mean, it’s good if you — uh, congrats, mate.” He coughed and smiled awkwardly.

Sherlock stared at the DI, a scowl darkening his face. “What are you on about?” he demanded, trying and failing to follow along with Lestrade’s fumbling words. “And John isn’t my flatmate.”

“So, he’s your… boyfriend?” Lestrade tried, brows rising in an encouraging expression.

His scowl deepening, Sherlock gawked at him. “What? No!” Striding toward the case file spread over the floor, Sherlock squatted and swept the sheets back into the folder. He rose with a sigh and slapped the case down into Lestrade’s empty hands. “This is John.”

Lestrade’s eyes dropped to the folder. For a moment, he simply stared, his brows rising and rising until Sherlock began to wonder if they might actually disappear into his greying hair. When they didn’t, Lestrade’s questioning, wide-eyed gaze rose to Sherlock’s face.

“This is the case you requested?” he asked.

“Yes,” Sherlock confirmed with a brisk nod.

Lestrade’s tongue darted out and stuck on his bottom lip, his brows falling as he frowned. “The suicide.”

“Yes.”

“You said you were talking to John?”

Humming in annoyance, Sherlock snapped, _“Yes.”_

Lestrade was silent for a long moment before he stabbed a finger down on the case file. “Sherlock, this man is dead.”

Eyes rolling in a clear display of impatience, Sherlock sighed, _“Obviously,_ Lestrade.”

“Sherlock,” Lestrade’s voice was weirdly calm, forcefully level as if he were speaking to a child, “you can’t talk to dead people.”

Nodding in agreement, Sherlock replied, “No, not usually.”

“Not usually as in…?”

_Christ, did he need to spell it out for him?_ “As in John is an exception.”

The expression on Lestrade’s face was growing closer to horrified with every passing second. “Sherlock, John is _dead.”_

“Oh, for the love of — We’ve been over this! _I know that.”_ Sherlock’s lifted his hands in exasperation, wondering how Lestrade could possibly manage to be thicker than usual. “Weren’t you listening?”

“No, I got that. He’s dead, that’s pretty clear.”

Fixing him with a hard glare, Sherlock snapped, “Then what is the problem here?”

Eyes wide, Lestrade shook the case file at him with a furious wave of his hand. “Well — how about you can’t talk to dead people!”

“I can talk to John.”

“John is dead!”

“I _KNOW!”_ Infuriated, Sherlock snatched the case file out of Lestrade’s hand with a snarl. “John is dead — that’s _how_ I’ve talked to him. He’s a ghost, Lestrade!”

Lestrade went stiff and still, his mouth hanging open. Pleased that he’d managed to stun the DI with his words, Sherlock smirked.

But his enjoyment was short-lived, wiped away by Lestrade’s follow-up question.

“Sherlock, are you high?”

Startled by the accusation, Sherlock glared and sputtered, “Excuse me?”

When he replied, Lestrade’s voice was perfectly level again, that eerie calm in place once more. “I think you’re hallucinating. So, and please don’t lie to me, are you high?”

“I’m _clean!”_ Sherlock snarled, shoving up his shirtsleeves with more force than needed. He presented his bare arms to the DI, his body quivering with indignation. “I did my time in rehab, and I got clean. I am _not_ using!”

Lestrade studied his arms, turning Sherlock’s hands this way and that. When his eyes rose to Sherlock’s face, he looked unconvinced. “Sherlock,” he began in a soft, soothing voice. But Sherlock heard the doubt beneath the facade, and he jerked his hands away as rage surged through him. Rage and hurt, the sting of Lestrade’s disbelief burning deep.

“I’m not using, Lestrade,” he said quietly. “And I’m not lying. John Watson’s ghost haunts this flat. I’ve seen him. I’ve _spoken_ to him.”

“Sherlock,” Lestrade repeated, still in that soft tone, “ghosts aren’t _real.”_

Sherlock opened his mouth to respond, angry words rising in his throat.

But they never made it out of his mouth. One of the plastic cups Sherlock left on the table rose into the air and flew past Lestrade’s face without warning. It struck the wall and bounced off onto the floor with a clatter. Sherlock had just enough time to note that the new dishes seemed to be living up to their intended durability when a plate smacked into the side of Lestrade’s head.

“What in the—” the DI began, words cutting off into a curse as he sidestepped a bowl. It hit the door and fell to the floor, where it wobbled for a second before settling.

“I think you’ve made him mad,” Sherlock noted, eyeing the dishes lest they rise and begin to assault him as well.

Staring at the dishes on the floor, Lestrade asked, “Who?”

Sherlock shook the case file. _“John.”_ He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Do _try_ and keep up, Lestrade.”

His own eyes wide, Lestrade looked away from the bowl and met Sherlock’s gaze. He blinked, shook his head, and blinked again. He opened his mouth to speak before closing it, nothing emerging. After another hard, stunned stare at the dishes, he looked back to Sherlock.

_“Blimey.”_


	7. Exposed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestrade meets John, and Sherlock is just as stubborn about solving John's case as ever.

"Alright,” Lestrade said, slowly backing away from the remaining plastic dishes on the table. “So that was unexpected.”

Watching with an arched brow, Sherlock crossed his arms over his chest. “Told you I wasn’t mad.”

“Never said you were mad,” Lestrade replied, still eyeing the dishes warily from the corner of his eyes as he moved toward the door. He didn’t leave, instead lingering as he looked around the room.

“No,” Sherlock agreed in a harsh voice, eyes narrowing, “you didn’t. You thought I was _high_ and accused me of breaking my sobriety.”

“Okay, yeah.” Lestrade shot him an apologetic glance before returning to his wary scan of the flat. “That wasn’t fair of me, and I apologize for that. But, Sherlock? Can you really blame me? You were talking to _the bloody air_ when I came in.”

Nudging the cup that had nearly hit Lestrade in the face, Sherlock scowled. “Well, clearly, I am _not_ high, and you saw the untimely flight of my new dishes as clearly as I did.” He looked up, fixing the DI with a hard glare. “Even you, in all your limited deductive capacity, should be able to put two and two together.” 

“Okay, sure, but ghosts, Sherlock? _Ghosts?”_

“Don’t be thick, Lestrade,” Sherlock snapped. As if to punctuate his statement, the bits of broken mug near the door skated across the floor. Jumping out of their path, Lestrade watched them skid into the opposite wall with widening eyes. 

Whirling on Sherlock, he narrowed his eyes. “I swear to god, Sherlock, if this is some kind of prank—”

“It’s not.”

The response didn’t come from Sherlock, whose mouth was closed, his lips pressed into a hard, thin line. 

Lestrade squinted at him. “How’d you do that without opening your mouth?”

“Easy,” Sherlock replied, tilting his head, “I wasn’t the one who spoke.” His eyes shifted, looking over the DI’s shoulder at the faint glow winking into view behind him. Set against the windows, the illumination was nearly intangible. Still, Sherlock recognized it as what he’d seen the night before, and he felt a surge of excited smugness to know he would soon have a witness to John’s irrefutable and paranormal existence. 

“But, if you didn’t…” Lestrade frowned, tracked the direction of Sherlock’s gaze, and blanched before he even turned around. When he did, it was slowly and with marked reluctance, his hands curled into stiff fists at his side. 

By the time he faced the windows, the hazy glow was solidifying into something not entirely familiar but undeniably shaped like a human. Like an imprint of something pressing into the very fabric of their world, John’s shape shifted and firmed, and Lestrade took a startled, stumbling step backward until he was level with Sherlock. 

Arms still folded over his chest, Sherlock watched the shape of the intangible illumination form features and distinct limbs, and he grinned. 

“That’s John,” he said, unwilling and unable to drag his eyes away from the image clarifying before them.

“Bloody buggering hell,” Lestrade breathed in a rough voice, his head shaking in slow denial. He blinked, twice and hard, and shook his head again. “It’s not possible.” 

Sherlock scoffed. “Do _try_ to think beyond your narrow world view, Lestrade,” he admonished. 

Lestrade shot him an exasperated glare. “You’re the one always spouting on about how things are simple, that everything has a rational, logical explanation.”

With his lips still curled upward in a little smirk, Sherlock tipped his head toward him. He didn’t take his eyes off John, who now looked almost entirely human, save for the faint view of the windows glimpsed through his hazy form. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve also said ‘once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’” He cast a quick, amused glance his way. “Or weren’t you listening?”

Still shaking his head slowly, Lestrade watched John turn his head and blink faded blue eyes at them. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“Careful.” John’s voice was like a soft, whispering wind, but Sherlock heard it as clearly as if he’d spoken directly into his ear, and, closing his eyes, he shivered with a surge of bliss. It was so good to be proven right after everyone directing nothing but doubt his way, and he clung to the pleasure as John added, “Being damned isn’t nearly as fun as you’d think.”

“Blimey,” said Lestrade, repeating himself.

Opening his eyes, his pleased little smile disappearing, Sherlock snapped, “Do stop being a moron, Lestrade.” To John, he said, “It’s good to see you again. I’d hoped we might continue our conversation from last night.” 

John’s expression darkened at once. Though it was more than that. It was like a light had gone off. The pale glow clinging to his features died out as quickly as a candle snuffed by a breeze. It made his face shadowed, cast into a sudden dark that seemed to have no logical cause. 

“My answer hasn’t changed,” the apparition said, and there was that same doubling quality to John’s voice that had resonated within Sherlock’s skull the night before. 

Scowling, Sherlock narrowed his eyes and glared at the ghost of the flat’s previous tenant. “What answers? You refused to tell me anything.” 

The air in the flat seemed to crackle, John’s outline blurring and darkening like his expression. “I told you to leave, and I still think you should.”

Sherlock lifted his head, chin jutting out in a stubborn clench of his jaw. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Then we have a problem, don’t we?” John snapped. 

Sherlock refused to validate the response with a reply. 

He and John stared at one another, locked into a silent battle of wills. The air continued to crackle, and the television flickered on in the corner of the room, a rising surge of static filling the space and making Lestrade jump with a curse. 

“Alright, alright.” Raising his voice, the DI stepped between Sherlock and John. It was clear that doing so made him uncomfortable, and he glanced nervously at John before turning to Sherlock. “I don’t know what the hell either of you is on about, but I do know something is going on here. And this, whatever this is,” he waved his hand to indicate John’s intangible form, the crackling air, the television still blaring static, “isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“He needs to leave,” John interrupted, cutting off anything else Lestrade might have said. The DI turned toward him. 

“Uh, hi. John, was it?” 

John tilted his head in a curt, silent acknowledgement. Sherlock glared at him and received a sharp look in return before Lestrade recaptured their attention.

“Alright, well, John. How about you tell us _why_ Sherlock needs to leave? I mean, is he really that bad of a flatmate?” Lestrade laughed at his own attempt at humour, but the sound was weak and strained, and it fell flat before dying an untimely death in the tense air filling the flat. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sherlock snapped before John could reply. “This is my flat, and I refuse to leave. And,” he stalked forward, nudging past Lestrade with his shoulder until he was hardly a foot away from John, “I’m not giving up on your case.”

Through the shadows clinging to John’s face, Sherlock saw the apparition’s teeth clench, his lips pressing into a tight line as a muscle leapt in his jaw. “I didn’t ask you to solve my death,” John said in a low voice. Gone was the doubling effect. The air had settled, and the television was now silent, the static on the screen noiseless. 

“Doesn’t mean you don’t need help,” Sherlock replied gently, looking into John’s eyes and seeing the window frame through their washed-out hue. His voice softened further, and he added, “Let me help you.”

John bristled, but some of the threatening darkness seemed to dissipate, letting a faint glow return to his face. “What makes you think I even want your help?” 

The corner of his lips twitching upward in a growing smile, Sherlock took a step closer, then another, until they were nearly face to face. He heard a sharp intake of breath behind him from Lestrade and ignored it. Instead, Sherlock met and held John’s gaze.

“You did,” Sherlock said, watching surprise flicker over John’s face. This close, he could almost make out the texture of his skin; could see the faded acne scars and fine wrinkles at the corners of John’s eyes. This close, despite the intangible quality of his appearance, he looked fragilely human. “You broke my dishes and scared the shit out of me.”

John’s eyes widened with slight surprise. Close as he was, Sherlock saw his eyelashes were blonde, little ephemeral flickers against his cheek when he blinked. “I was trying to make you leave.”

“Well, evidently, it didn’t work,” Sherlock quipped. Spinning away in a sudden rush of energy, he strode forward and grabbed the case file still clutched in Lestrade’s hand. He turned back to John and waved the folder toward him. “Like it or not, John Watson, I’m going to solve your case.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little heads up that this fic might go on hiatus for the holidays - I have 6 chapters to write and edit for Hired Gun before the 22nd, so it'll depend on how I do with that. I will do my best to keep updating this, but if not, then it'll pick back up in January.


	8. The Game is On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock invites Lestrade into his investigation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look, an update, albeit a short one. Sorry that it's been so long, folks! No update schedule for this fic, but I'll update it when I can. Thanks for your patience!

Sherlock left his words to hang in the air, letting them emphasize his conviction to everyone in the room. Flipping the case file open to the dragged-out, noiseless presence of John and Lestrade’s silences, Sherlock frowned down at the remaining information inside.

“First thing’s first,” he said, tracking the intangible flicker of John’s hazy form from the edge of his vision. “It's clear that someone doesn’t want this case reopened.”

“What makes you say that?” Lestrade's voice was raspy, and he gave his head a visible shake as if clearing away a fugue. Beyond him, John lingered near the windows. His gaze was unblinking and fixed on Sherlock.

Lifting his eyes from the file, Sherlock met John's stare. “Someone was in the flat,” he replied, speaking to Lestrade but still looking at John. “While I was out, someone broke in.” John's expression didn't betray anything at the statement, and Sherlock clicked his tongue against his teeth in annoyance. Glancing at the door with its broken lock, he tipped his head and amended, “Well, _walked in_ might be more accurate.” Lips pursed, he tapped a finger to the file. “They took two photos of the crime scene and the final autopsy report.”

Lestrade crossed the room and leaned closer to look at the file. “But it was ruled a suicide,” he said, a confused edge colouring his words. “Why would anyone go through the trouble to steal evidence from a closed case?”

A small smirk curled the edges of Sherlock’s lips. “Now you're asking the _right_ questions, Lestrade,” he said, shooting a pleased look at the DI. “Why, indeed?” Sherlock dropped the file into Lestrade’s startled hands and began to pace. He did so without much focus for where he stepped but still managed to skirt the broken shards of crockery scattered across the floor. “The case was ruled a suicide when it clearly wasn’t. But it was closed. Clearly, someone doesn’t want it reopened, which means there must be more here than those who handled the case initially believed.” Sherlock swung to a halt and pointed at Lestrade. “Even you can’t deny that someone stealing evidence points to a guilty party.”

Lestrade eyed the finger jabbed in his direction with a grim expression. “No,” he finally admitted with a sigh, “I can’t deny that.” He frowned at the folder and set it open on the table. “But why now? What made them suddenly come back to the scene?”

Rolling his eyes, Sherlock shot John a look, hoping for someone to share in his annoyance. John looked back at him with an impassive expression. He still hadn’t moved, remaining near the curtains and watching everything unfold with his faded eyes. Sherlock wished he knew him better, so he could read him. He couldn't be certain, but he thought John would have been just as hard to fathom even if he'd still been alive.

“Someone knows that I’ve reopened the case,” Sherlock said. “Or they’ve been watching the flat and saw that there was a new tenant, one that didn’t immediately run away at the first sign that something was off. They're worried something will turn up or be found out.” He turned in a slow circle, squinting until his eyes landed on the door and widened. “Someone who knew the lock was broken on the front door.” Thumb sweeping over this bottom lip with a thoughtful expression, Sherlock strode to the door. He fiddled with the knob and scowled. “Shouldn’t this have been replaced?” He glanced at Lestrade for confirmation. “Isn’t that what most people would ask their landlords to do in such a case? Why would none of the previous tenants have asked for it to be fixed?”

Lestrade shrugged. “Maybe he never got around to it?”

From behind them, John spoke. His voice was soft; a puff of air that Sherlock swore touched his cheek and tickled his nape. “He never fixed it,” he said, gaze fixed on the door. There was a small crease between his brows, and his eyes darkened. “No one ever stayed long enough to make him do it, either.” He sounded almost sheepish, admitting to his part to play in the frequent turn-over of renters.

“Fascinating,” Sherlock breathed. He reached out and prodded the door. It creaked, swinging slowly on its old, rusty hinges. Tearing his eyes away, Sherlock smirked at John. “So it’s your fault they were able to break in so easily, is it?”

John’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t reply. Sherlock, unperturbed, crossed the room and plunked himself down at the table.

“Well,” he said, spreading the photos and papers over the surface before him. “None of that matters now. What matters is figuring out who was in the flat and why they’re still watching it years after John’s death was ruled a closed-case suicide.” Sherlock looked up to gauge John’s reaction to his words, but John was looking at the door, still with that small crease on his brow. He didn’t seem to notice Sherlock’s scrutiny, and Lestrade’s throat clearing caught Sherlock’s attention.

“Do you have any ideas?” he asked, standing at an angle rather than fully facing Sherlock. He seemed unwilling to turn his back on John entirely. Sherlock couldn’t entirely blame him. John’s existence and the sudden validity of the supernatural wasn’t the easiest thing to accept right off the bat.

Rather than dwell on his own easy acceptance of the truth, Sherlock drummed his fingers against the table and shook his head. “Not a one,” he said with a false cheer that he did not feel. “But I think, given time, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. But I’ll need just that. Time.”

“You sure you have that?” Lestrade asked, his tone dubious. His gaze darted nervously to John and away.

Looking at John again and finding that their eyes met this time, Sherlock mused, “I think time might be the one thing that John has far too much of.”

Lestrade’s face went pale. “Sherlock,” he hissed, admonishing, “that’s not entirely proper.”

“It’s fine,” John muttered from his place near the windows. “It’s not like he’s wrong.”

“Exactly.” Rising from the table, Sherlock rolled his shoulders and clapped his hands together with far more enthusiasm than might have been appropriate for the situation. But who cared? Finally, there was something to be done. He was on the case, and nothing would stop him from solving it, not now that someone else knew something was going on. “Who cares about proper?” Sherlock said, unable to keep the small smile off his face. “The game is on.”


End file.
